Yes I would have liked my numbers to be more definitive, but what I learned from those who've gone before me, is that…it's not all in the numbers.

I agree with you, a lot of ideas or products can stand up on their own and indeed sell, they don't require a community or following. I reference them as “mercenary” products a few times in my posts. There's nothing wrong with them, but if you had a general following, not for that specific product but for your mission in creating services and products in general, you could grow that following overtime, and when/if you do have business endeavors you want to include them on, your community of followers and fans are going to be your best asset. They'll share your product, give you great feedback and buy it!

I gotta link up with David from Muselife again, that dude makes things happen! Glad you enjoyed the video.

So you were able to get a general feel on whether you should proceed? I thought you said it was not as definitive as you would have liked.

BTW, I just watched your interview over on muselife.com on how you used outsourcing to find clients for your other business. Excellent.

Indeed I could sell the service outright, as I certainly have. The point behind the product thats mentioned elsewhere on the blog is that solving this problem is the most common question I get, and so I'd like to turn it into a product and escape having to waste my time each time someone needs help. I'm all for getting paid, but I'm looking to escape being paid for my time, and instead being paid for a service or product that doesn't require me to be present. The product would be aimed at quick application for very amateur users, not a long book for reading and absorbing, much more of a “action” guide then a sit down a read one, if that makes sense.

Indeed more traffic would have been better but I was able to get a general feel, I was surprised, most of the others didn't really care about traffic. Thanks for the input! Hope to see you around more!

Interesting post. I have some questions, but first have you read Eric Ries's Lean Startup blog? Here is a post that may interest you: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/10/ca.... It is very much along the lines of testing a market before you invest too much time and effort.

It seems to me you should be able to sell your service outright without having to build a blog audience around it, as some of the bloggers above have suggested. Remember to a carpenter everything is a nail. Most people don't want to think about backups (that's your selling prop, no?) so I doubt they will want to do regular reading about it. I am partial to the comments from Warner and Rollett. I would like to hear more of their opinions versus the others. But it seems obvious that you need more traffic to test your conversion. I remember Ferriss suggested $50/day for one week.

Stick around cause I'm not going anywhere. I certainly do plan on continuing to do both. I'm in no rush, so I bet this site will go a bit slower than most, I typically post about once a week, but there's no quitting and I totally do want to keep up my project so I have record of what I did, how I went from point A to point B.

You're right by the way, there are TON's of lifestyle designers out there that are merely pitching lifestyle design, not living it and reporting back…it's a sly misconception. You have to be keen about where there intentions are. Most of the people I plug here I've contacted personally and vouch for!

Also, I have to credit that having this blog has put me in contact with plenty of entrepreneurs and freelancers that I'd want to work with or talk to on the “real” business side…so from a networking aspect it's awesome…you could say that about any venture though, always networking. Thanks for stopping by, keep offering input! Drop me a line anytime.

As always thanks for the post.

Indeed creating a poll is stellar advice, some of the experienced bloggers recommended it above. Unfortunately on my other blog the response would be dismal at this point, in the future though, its a great way to gauge feasibility.

Indeed, promoting the guide on my other blog would happen and perhaps pull some eyeballs there for the future.

I shall have your e-mail good sir! PC to Mac migration and your questions are in the que of posts. Look for the “Helping Carl” post in the future! … thanks as always for participating in the conversation, much appreciated!

if your concern is not having enough of a current audience
maybe there is a nugget or chapter from that guide that can be used to get more eyeballs.

Two things that would get me to share my email address:

PC to Mac Migration Guide:
-transfer contacts and mail from outlook to mac
-transfer itunes library with ratings

There are a lot of people making that switch and plenty of horribly written blog posts on the matter as well!